You Can Own a Barrel of Scotch Whisky for Just $8,300
“Would you like to own your own barrel of Scotch whisky?” That’s a simple question with a simple answer: yes. And now it’s not a hypothetical question anymore thanks to the Isle of Arran Distillers.
The independent distillery is selling barrels (each of which holds around 280 standard bottles) and hogsheads (around 360 standard bottles) of new single malt whisky for around $8,300 a barrel and around $12,000 a hogshead. That comes out to around $30 a bottle, but final prices are variable and could change over time depending on a number of factors like taxes and bottling rates. The spirit is aged on the island for however many years you want (it’s insured for a minimum of 10), and then bottled for you. You can even go and watch your barrel age like a barrel-owning helicopter parent.
Arran’s scotch is the only whisky made on the 160-square-mile Isle of Arran. It opened in 1995, and makes a range of lightly peated to heavily peated whiskies. In addition to the barrel, The Spirits Business reports, cask owners become members of the Lagg Cask Society and receive a bottle from the first casks filled at Lagg, the distillery’s yet-to-be-opened second location.
Drinking a bottle of quality whisky is great, but drinking a self-branded bottle of quality whisky from a barrel you own is even better. Arran is joining a list of other distilleries selling barrels of their spirit. Midleton Distillery in Ireland, Jack Daniel’s, Casa Herradura and others all offer their liquor by the barrel. Arran’s comes with the excuse to make more trips to Scotland, though, since the 2009 Scotch Whisky Regulations requires all scotch to be exported in bottles, preventing people from having the whole cask sent stateside. Start saving now and consider the extra trips to Scotland part of the experience of being a whisky barrel owner.